Sex in American Cinema Final Project

 The media can be an instrument of change, maintain the status quo, and shape individual beliefs and cultural norms. In addition, the media is created by specific cultures, and reflects those cultures. Watching movies is a favorite American past time. As for the representation of sex, its depiction in films has changed drastically since its origins in American film. The addition of more sexually explicit content constructs a portrait of reality. The development of sex and nudity in American film reflects society, its beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors. As American values changed, the images of society presented by the media changed. This project will explore sexual representations and their regulation in American cinema from the industry’s early years to the present day.

 Adolescence was invented in the early 1900s, in which adolescents were identified as neither children nor adults. So, adolescence was considered to be a sexually tempestuous stage in life, and adults wanted to control adolescent sexuality (Sex and Society). Motion pictures had the potential to construct stories and show images that some Americans found immoral. It was during a period or urbanization and modernization. People were concerned about sex hygiene, issues of birth control, pre-marital sex and the divorce rate. Conservative Protestants believed that the exposure to sexual content would lead to a weakening of traditional sexual values. Therefore, a state obscenity law was created that put a limit on sexual expression in motion pictures. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled film censorship constitutional. In addition, it determined that motion pictures were not protected under the 1^st Amendment because they were “mere representations of events, of ideas and sentiments published and known, vivid, useful and entertaining no doubt” but also “capable of evil, having power for it, the greater because of their attractiveness and manner of exhibition.” Despite the 1^st Amendment, filmmakers still showed nudity as well as the portrayal of vice and immorality (Pennington).

In the 1916 film, The Vixen, Theda Bara plays a nymphomaniac. She was risque and exotic. She became the first vamp.

Many Americans were offended and called for greater censorship.

 As a result, the largest companies in the industries formed The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association in 1922. Motion pictures attracted large audiences, especially among the poor and working class. The organization assumed responsibility for the moral standardization of popular films. William H. Hays was the first President. At first Hays tried to convince studios to adopt voluntary self-regulation. However, studios failed to meet Hays expectations, so he formed the Studio Relations Committee in 1927. Studios were prohibited from implying adultery, passionate acts such as excessive lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, seduction or rape, sex hygiene and venereal diseases, and childbirth (Doherty). The main objective was for a ban on sex in order to maintain the sanctity of marriage and the home.

Individuals born between 1925 and 1945 are considered to be a part of The Silent Generation. These individuals tended to have traditional values in relation to sex including views that teenage sex, pre-marital sex, and same-gender sex was wrong. The Silent Generation believed that sexual pleasure was a part of a happy marriage. Compliance with the code was a verbal agreement in which self censorship set boundaries for what could be seen, heard, and even implied on film. However, oversight was lax and producers did not pay attention to the Hays Code (Doherty). Filmmakers used important dialogue and images of clothing because, “nudity unseen was better than no nudity at all.” Elliptical editing would become Hollywood’s preferred technique for implying sex (Pennington). For example, In The Big Sleep, Humphrey Bogart plays a detective. He goes into a bookstore looking for information and begins flirting with the shop girl in a kind of innuendo laden dialogue. When it begins raining otside he offers her a drink, and says "I'd rather get wet in here." She pulls the curtains closed, locks the door, gets out two glasses, takes off her glasses, puts her hair down and the screen fades to black. When the screen fades up it is nighttime. Without explicity showing a sex scene, the filmmakers were still able to imply that it happened.

Filmmakers found loopholes in the code.  They were able to embed sex in stories in which sex had a minor thematic role, but a significant screen presence. Hays faced pressure.

 In 1934, American Cinema changed. Hays wanted to put a more respectable face on the motion picture industry. He changed the Studio Relations Committee to the Production Code Administration. Joseph I. Breen became its head and one of the most influential figures in American Cinema (Pennington). “More than any single individual, he shaped the moral stature of the American Picture.” Breen presided over and upheld the moral universe of Classic Hollywood cinema. “He wanted to remake American cinema into a positive force for good, to imbue it with a transcendent sense of virtue and order.” Film censorship got stricter in detecting what was visually and verbally forbidden. (Doherty). The Production Code Administration began to “regulate, systematically and scrupulously the content of Hollywood motion pictures.” In addition, a single corporate entity, the Hollywood Studio System, produced, distributed, and exhibited the film products. Breen required that every producer submit their screenplays to the PCA board for a seal of a approval before beginning production or distributing the film. Images that were forbidden were cut. Dialogue that was explicit was overdubbed or deleted. The PCA could fine any member that did not comply (Pennington).

Under the code, an image not even depicted on screen, but merely planted in the spectators mind was considered dangerous. Appendix 1 of the code stated, “The presentation of scenes, episodes, plots, etc. which one deliberately meant to excite manifestations of sex and passion on the part of the audience is always wrong.” Therefore, according to the code subject matter relating to sex must not be shown unless absolutely essential to the plot because they cannot be presented without arousing dangerous emotion on the part of the immature and the young. The code was divided into two parts: the first stating its moral vision, and second outlining the forbidden material. (Doherty). The Code sought to establish and maintain a moral universe with visual ethical guidelines. It was believed that the lack of morality in motion pictures had the potential for social damage.

In 1943, the PCA condemned Jane Russell’s cleavage in, The Outlaw.

Hughes had considerable trouble getting it approved by PCA due to its heavy emphasis on and prominent display of Russell's breasts. The PCA strictly enforced its rules about what actors and actresses could and could not do on screen. For example, lip-on-lip action was scandalous. So, filmmakers had to avoid excessive passion. The lips could only touch for 3 seconds at a time. Alfred Hitchcock’s, Notorious, has the most epic kiss in movie history. Notorious has the first romantic scene in film. The two main characters get around the code by kissing for 3 seconds, but they do it over a period of 3 minutes.

Conservative sexual norms prevailed in popular films until the mid-1940s.

The Baby Boomers are the individuals born between 1946 and 1962. Unlike The Silent Generation, The Baby Boomers did not think that sex should be reserved for marriage only. Their only standard was that two people be in a loving relationship (Sex and Society). In 1948, producers caught a break when the Supreme Court provided Motion Pictures protection under the 1^st Amendment. This created a legal opening for which nudity and sex could gradually enter mainstream. The reduced threat gave filmmakers less reason to comply with the code. In the mid 1950s, cracks in the code appeared. Hollywood under the code was fraught with defiance (Doherty). In the 1950s, television quickly took over Hollywood’s position as the largest provider of entertainment in the U.S. So, studios began to challenge the code more directly in order to differentiate motion pictures from television.

In the 1960s the code crumbled. In 1961, the ban against homosexuality and other non-normative sexual behaviors was dropped. Between 1963 and 1981, the young adults’ of Generation X had attitudes and lifestyles focused more on pleasure and casual sex (Sex and Society). A ratings system replaced the Production Code in 1968. The categories classified films as acceptable for adults or for adults and adolescents. A was morally unobjectionable, B was morally objectionable in part, C was condemned. As the 60s was winding down there was no production code left. Studios were able to enjoy more freedom of expression (Pennington). Film represented the counter-culture attitudes of anti-establishment, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. A Clockwork Orange, 1971, features disturbing sexual and, violent images including rape torture and murder. The youth gang breaks into a house, beats a man and makes him watch as they strip his wife of her clothes. The rest is left to the audience to figure out.

In the 1970s, there was a liberal realignment in sexual behavior patterns in the U.S.

Generation Y, those individuals born between 1982 and 2001, have the most permissive attitudes toward sex. These individuals have sex at a younger age, approve of casual sex, oral sex, pornography, masturbation and homosexuality. Generation Y believes that if two people want to have sex than sex is acceptable (Sex and Society). In 2009, the film, Precious, released to theaters. The movie follows a story about a 16-year-old girl who is abused by her mother and raped and impregnated by her father twice. Precious is rated R.

The generations of the 20^th century differ greatly in their attitudes about sex, and sexuality than those of the previous generations. Today there is explicit representation of sex and violence in films. To date, I cannot say there is another movie that explores the development of sex in film than does, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2010. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo does not have a rating. There are graphic scenes of sexual assault, and nudity. As well as, brutally violent content including rape, and torture. In addition, the main character uses a taser gun on her rapist, shoves an object up his anus, and carves a tattoo into his chest which reads, “I am a sadistic pig, a pervert, and a rapist.”

 Personally when I saw the rape scene in the film, I almost left the theater. I was shocked, and uncomfortable. It was not something I was expecting to see. It was not something I felt like I should be sitting and watching. My friend and I both contemplated leaving. We stayed because I think the scene although extremely disturbing is important to see. Media, such as films have a power. They can be an experience of learning about the world and human nature. Even if I or my friend or no one else in that audience has experienced such evil it is important that we can understand the horrors of the victims and the damage it inflicts on their lives. Lisabeth Salander, the main character is a survivor of sexual violence. So, she is a symbol of self determination in the face of adversity.

Sexual content has been depicted in film since the silent era, but no one could have imagined where it has come to. The transformation in censorship laws and changes in obscenity laws has allowed for a greater presence of sex in American film. Hollywood’s depiction of sex has changed over the course of a century and exposes the changing sexual values and behavior patterns in American society. The industry parallels the changes in American’s sex lives. People like sex. Sex sells. So, where do we go from here?

 Sex and Society. Vol. 2. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2010. Googlebooks.

 Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Pre-code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. Googlebooks.

 Pennington, Jody W. The History of Sex in American Film. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Googlebooks.